Earth First! Journal article on the AETA4 case

The Outcome of Organizing With Too Large of a Heart
By Jezzabell

From EF! Journal Beltane - Volume 29, Issue 4

For some, it is a loved one, family member, passionate friend or partner. Someone you have grown with through some of the brightest days and toughest hardships of life, someone you have shared so much with who you care for like nothing else in this world, someone irreplaceable. For others, it may be a friend of a friend or a persyn that you met while milling about between paths of entwined chaparral, or hiking among musky redwoods on your way to the old treesit at University of California, Santa Cruz.To some, it is another face and name of a persyn whose heart was so mountainous and compassion so mammoth that they fell subject to scrutiny of a cold, heartless state.

On February 19, Nathan Pope and Adriana Stumpo flew into Charlotte, North Carolina, from Costa Rica. Upon their return to the US, they were met by members of the Charlotte Joint Terrorism Task Force and arrested. The next day, Joseph Buddenberg and Maryam Khajavi were arrested in Oakland, California. Joeseph was arrested at the Alameda County court house, appearing for accusations of disturbing the peace at an animal rights protest outside of Robert Bluhm (the assistant director of capital projects at UC Berkeley)'s Berkeley home. He pled no contest to the charge before him.

Nathan and Adriana appeared before a federal court in Charlotte on February 20. Six days later, the two were released and extradited back to California. Maryam and Joseph appeared in court on February 27 and received a preliminary hearing date for March 19. The court room was packed with supporters.

As of press time, all four arrests are scheduled to appear at the same hearing that will take place in San Jose, California, on April 13 at 9 a.m. Nathan, Adriana and Maryam are free on bail, while Joseph is on house arrest in his Oakland home.

The lengths to which the FBI has dug for evidence in this case surpasses most other animal rights investigations. Allegations on the indictment start as far back as October 21, 2007. It was then that the four named in the indictment were allegedly part of a 20-or-so-persyn home demonstration that mostly consisted of chants and chalking. The four were identified in video footage of the demonstration and were served a summons, which was later dismissed.

The indictment states that individuals were involved in "making threats," "trespass," "harassment and intimidation" in the neighborhood of, according to press reports, UC Berkeley vivisector Leonard Bjeldanes.

The next complaint was filed on January 27, 2008. The four were accused of crimes such as threats, intimidation and harassment that were similar to those listed on the previous allegation. The indictment reads that, over the course of seven hours, approximately 11 individuals protested at the homes of five different UC Berkeley vivisectors. It also mentioned that the individuals used two different cars, one of which was registered to Maryam's family.

February 24, 2008, was the next date mentioned in the complaint, though not in the indictment, in which five to six individuals allegedly participated in a home demonstration at the home of a UCSC professor. At this home, the husband of the vivisector opened the door as protestors were allegedly shaking the handle and banging on the door. He then began to get into a physical altercation with one of the protestors.

The husband's description of a vehicle used by protestors at the demonstration lead police to a Santa Cruz address, where police later surrounded the home for more than eight hours until they could obtain a warrant to raid the house (see EF!J March-April 2008). At the peak of the standoff, there were 20 cops and agents waiting to break into the home, and 75 copwatchers present in solidarity with the five inside. The police gained entry by breaking windows and doors before they smashed out the lights with their weapons. Public information on vivisectors that was allegedly found inside was held as evidence against the four. Also that night, the Santa Cruz police department obtained a search warrant for Maryam's car. After impounding the vehicle and searching it, cops allegedly found bandanas and a bullhorn. The complaint states that DNA from Maryam, Nathan and Adriana was found on the bandanas. During the last week of September 2008, three people were served court orders for their DNA, and another persyn received a grand jury subpoena in downtown Santa Cruz.

Another date of reference is July 29, 2008, when approximately 30 fliers, entitled "Murderers and Torturers Alive and Well in Santa Cruz, July 2008 Edition" were allegedly turned in to the cops by a customer named Rodent at Santa Cruz's Caffe Pergolesi. After reviewing security camera tapes, Joseph and Nathan were allegedly seen entering the store two hours prior to the discovery of the fliers.

Two days before the cafe incident, an Internet Protocol address from a Kinko's in Santa Cruz was allegedly found to have accessed and downloaded information pertaining to 11 of the vivisectors highlighted on the flier. Alleged surveillance footage from Kinko's showed Nathan and Adriana, as well as one individual unnamed in the indictment (though it stats he/she is "known to the grand jury"), using an internet terminal for nearly 50 minutes. The Kinko's server logs allegedly reflected the research on those 11 vivisectors.

To the state, these four individuals are terrorists. Their compassion and advocacy for animals holds zero weight in their eyes. These four are being accused of violating the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA).

AETA became law on November 27, 2006, with almost no media attention and amidst staunch public opposition. It basically deems anything threatening to animal abusers, experimenters, murders, specieists, and their companies, families, profits and property illegal. An earlier version of the law played a large role in the conviction of the SHAC 7 in March 2006. Being found guilty of any charges violating the AETA would lead to multiple-year prison sentencing for these four.

There are numerous considerations to be looked at from this case. The most necessary task before us is support. These four are in need of courtroom solidarity if you are in their area. They need financial donations for legal costs that will easily exceed tens of thousands of dollars for lawyer fees. For more information visit their website http://www.aeta4.org. Please donate to their legal funds or throw fundraisers for the four. In light of this, we must all learn how to support each other more strongly and organize safely.

These four are in trouble for pouring their hearts into efforts to stop vivisection within the University of California system. While we are supporting these four, don't forget the animals that they worked so hard to advocate for. The same life-thieving cages are still in the same buildings, being used by the same people.